Tag: 15mm Historical

At the weekend I thought I’d fit in a solo game of some sort, and after a bit of prevarication over a coffee I decided to dust off some Romans and Gauls and try out a modest re-fight of the Battle of the Sambre. This is something I’ve fancied doing for a long time, since first reading about the battle and the wargame re-fight in Charles Grant (Snr)’s ‘The Ancient Wargame’ – which I must have owned for over 30 years.

The Romans (6 legions of them), commanded by Caesar, have marched up to the river Sambre in northern Gaul/Belgica and are busy working on their overnight fort when they’re surprised by a huge horde of hairy locals intent on mayhem and blood. The Romans have to try to form up and defend themselves while hoping that the remaining 2 legions, who are following with the baggage, arrive in time to help.

I used home-grown rules, written by a friend, to play the game in 15mm on a gridded board. It played as a fairly standard-sized game, to which I added a few scenario-specific rules and of course played around with the initial deployment to reflect the Romans’ state of unreadiness.

So, what happened in my re-fight? I’ll aim to tell the story with more pictures than words..

The Romans in the process of constructing their marching fort. The leaders had to use the majority of their early command ‘pips’ just to reform their troops, leaving little scope for forming up a sensible battle formation – or even a full line.

 

 

 

The tribes burst out of the opposite treeline slope on turn 1 and ploughed into the river. On the left the Nervii made up the largest contingent (which was to give them some command and control challenges), with the smaller Viromandui and Atrebates contingents making up the rest of the coalition army. The river was a minor obstacle, but moving fresh and eager warbands towards an enemy is never that difficult!

 

 

 

 

Caesar did manage to make some semblance of order out of the chaos before the Gauls hit, but it was tough fighting from the start and isolated VII Legion on the right wing was steadily pushed back, creating a real risk of the whole army being outflanked. The few Roman skirmishers did quite well, causing a delay here and there and buying some time for the heavy troops to form up.

 

 

 

The Roman auxiliary light cavalry had clearly done a very poor scouting job, and although they passed their ‘flee’ test when the enemy charged out of the woods, they contributed nothing to the battle – basically due to the Roman generals being too busy elsewhere to try to get them to do anything. Reasonably historical really.

Caesar posted himself with his best troops, X Legion, on the left, trusting his sub-commander to hold the right flank.

The XIII and XIV Legions were on their way though, and the retreating right wing was clearly where they were most needed – and where they’d be able to make the earliest intervention. The death of the Roman general on this flank was a nasty set-back at a crucial point but the army’s command structure soon organised a replacement and disaster was averted.

 

 

Fighting was very fierce over and around the unfinished fortifications in the centre. The Gauls had the best of the initial clashes, but couldn’t quite destroy any of the legions to enable them to break through in the centre. Eventually the Roman fighting discipline told and, although it was touch and go until the end, they held firm and saw off the enemy here.

On the right it continued to be tougher, with the King of the Nervii leading a furious attack which looked likely to win the day.

The late-arriving column comes into play, with VII Legion on the brink of collapse and about to be saved by a timely Roman quick-step unit replacement manoeuvre. After this the Nervii tried to re-group for another attack but the Romans had effectively shored up their line and the right flank was secure.

On the left Caesar got stuck in and helped to keep the lads steady, and fortunately just when the line was about to give way, the King of the Viromandui was struck down atop the ramparts and the rest of his tribe melted away. Although the Atrebates had made progress against the Roman left flank, they were now isolated and decided to follow their allies back across the river.

 

The end of the battle, with the Romans victorious – although many of their units were on the brink of being destroyed. The Gallic alliance had just fallen short in some key combats, and couldn’t make their greater numbers tell. History had repeated itself, and although Caesar had had a bit of a scare, he knew his invasion of northern Gaul would now proceed more smoothly. He’d just need to give some thought to how he’d write things up for the Senate and the People…

All in all it was an enjoyable game, and it was nice to play a scenario I’d been keen to do for so many years.

The first game ended in a Roman minor victory, with them scoring 15 victory points (14 being required for a win) against the Carthaginians, with the latter scoring 10 in return.

With the terrain and figures already to hand it would have been rude not to play another game so I made a few minor changes to the table (ie. clearing a bit more central space) and re-deployed. This time I upped the armies by half again for a 150 point game involving a total of just over 500 figures. The Romans had now recruited a force of Spanish and the Carthaginians had bought in more Gauls and Numidians.

On the assumption that the Carthaginians were coming back for more, and the Romans were happy to oblige (and confident from the first battle), I decided that both sides were ‘up for it’ and there was no defender as such. I didn’t take many pictures this time, but did capture the deployment and some of the early moves.

 

 

The lines getting closer:

First clashes:

This time the Romans were faced by a first line of seething Gauls who charged in hard as they always do. The elephants were in the Carthaginian second line, as were the best of their infantry. It worked; despite the Romans using their unique ‘Legion’ rule which allowed them to swap tired units in combat with fresh reserves, and cutting up most of the Gauls, the attrition was too heavy and their right and right-centre crumbled. Both sides were forced to commit generals to the melee, and several were lost.

What’s Latin for ‘not this lot again!’?

 

 

 

When the dust cleared the Carthaginians had got their revenge. Both Roman flanks were crushed and although they still had a reasonably viable second line still able to fight, the enemy had achieved a decent victory: 23-15 (first to score 21 being the winner in this bigger battle). I think the Romans would have been able to fall back on their camp, and march away during the night or the following day – the enemy were too hard hit themselves to prevent it.

It was very enjoyable to return to this period, collection and rules. I hope not to leave it so long next time.

A quick note on figures;

The Romans are made up of Essex and Old Glory infantry, Essex cavalry and a right old mix for skirmishers, including some 10th Legion and (now defunct) Strategia e Tattica.

The Carthaginians are even more of a mix – most are Corvus Belli, but there are some Lancashire, Essex and Old Glory in there too.

They all go together well as far as I’m concerned, which makes picking what to buy a matter of preference rather than being restricted by size, etc.

In the end I played two solo Rome vs Carthage games on Friday evening, finishing off on Saturday morning.

The first was a 100 point game (100 points per army as per the rules I was using). I played it as a standard attack-defence game, having previously rolled to determine that the Carthaginians would be the attacker. The game set up gave the Romans a handy hill in their deploy area, and provided for a couple of woods towards the flanks. There would be plenty of open space in the middle for the infantry to come to grips, and just enough open ground to either flank for the Carthaginian cavalry advantage to be a factor.

The Roman commanders have a quick pre-battle pep rally:

The deployment and battlefield:

 

The Roman infantry (2 lines rather than 3, but I think most rules and wargames have some compromise here):

The Carthaginians:

The Elephant brigade:

Spanish and African infantry:

Cavalry:

True to their mission, the Carthaginian army advanced, pushing cavalry ahead on the flanks and skirmishers into the woods to fight their Roman counterparts. The Romans used more velites in an attempt to delay the crunch of elephant on hastati, but couldn’t hold them up for long and soon the battle was in full flow as the front ranks crashed into each other. Gauls and Spanish charged the Roman wall and heavy cavalry closed in on the weaker Roman left.

 

 

 

 

 

The fighting was tough everywhere, and the Roman cavalry in particular fought back tenaciously despite the odds.

 

The elephants, having swept aside the velites (who did at least cause some casualties and disruption) got stuck into a unit of principes, pushing them back in disorder.

A freak result for some of the Spanish against heavier Roman infantry!

The battle lines surged back and fore and each side had their share of triumphs and disasters. After 8 game turns though, the Romans had dealt with the nellies and held on despite their vulnerable flanks, winning a close victory (15-10) and forcing the enemy to retire from the field. There would need to be a re-match, but in the meantime it was definitely beer o’clock..

 

Although he’s probably gone to bed now, Andy was chasing for some pictures so without any wordy bits, here are a few I thought I’d post ahead of the rest…

 

 

 

One good game played, another slightly bigger one underway.